Of the many security quagmires confronting President Barack Obama, perhaps the most challenging is how he navigates the Bush administration's decision to place missile defense installations in Eastern Europe. As a candidate, Obama didn't rule out keeping the Bush plan to put a missile defense radar in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland, but he did place the onus on the technology--i.e., it had to be viable. True to his campaign promise, upon taking office, he ordered a review of the program, which is about to be completed.

No matter how critical the report is--and most expect it to be highly skeptical of the Bush plan--it won't be easy for Obama to reverse course on European missile defense. Poland and the Czech Republic would hate to see their 15 minutes of fame end as key U.S. allies when it comes to missile defense, and other NATO allies would certainly wonder how seriously the United States takes its commitments. And if the change goes too far in accommodating Russian concerns, Republicans would be all-too-happy to accuse Obama of appeasement. As a result, Obama may make only minor modifications to the Bush plan--the radar, for example, might stay in the Czech Republic, but the interceptors could be moved offshore or to a less controversial location such as somewhere in the Balkans.

More largely, it will be tough for Obama to let go of missile defense because until now, the discussion has been framed in such a way that it's implicitly assumed that missile defense is a fundamentally useful thing--as long as it can be made efficient and built at reasonable cost without damaging the prospect for nuclear disarmament, of course. In short, the argument often is that the current missile defense system is flawed, but if those flaws could be solved, missile defense would be a great boon to international security. Missile defense proponents, of course, go much further, stating that missile defense provides a reliable (and some insist the only) way to counter emerging missile threats. The notion of missile defense as a good thing even entered the nuclear abolition debate earlier this year, with many experts ready to grant it a useful role at the final stages of disarmament, arguing that it might provide protection against those who cheat the system and attempt to build/use a nuclear weapon.

The fundamental problem with this argument is that missile defense will never live up to these expectations. Let me say that again: Missile defense will never make a shred of difference when it comes to its primary mission--protecting a country from the threat of a nuclear missile attack. That isn't to say that advanced sensors and interceptors someday won't be able to deal with sophisticated missiles and decoys. They probably will. But again, this won't overcome the fundamental challenge of keeping a nation safe against a nuclear threat, because it would take only a small probability of success to make such a threat credible while missile defense would need to offer absolute certainty of protection to truly be effective.

This was fairly easy to grasp during the Cold War. At that time, it was clear that no defense could realistically protect people against thousands of warheads. But now that the Cold War is over and the threat involves a handful of warheads (if that many), the goal of building a working missile defense system seems within reach. Indeed, how hard would it be to intercept a rudimentary missile launched by North Korea? The answer seems simple: Not easy, but definitely doable. But it's the wrong question to ask. Instead, we should ask: Would missile defense change Washington's strategic calculation in a potential conflict with North Korea or Iran? The answer to this question is a firm no.

In a real confrontation, missile defense would be irrelevant at best. For starters, the probability of a country such as North Korea successfully launching a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to U.S. territory is low. So when all of the uncertainties in missile and warhead performance are added up, the chance of success probably wouldn't be higher than a few percent (which, by the way, is considered a highly potent threat worthy of a multibillion dollar investment in missile defense). Missile defense eventually might be able to reduce that chance, maybe even considerably, but it will never reduce it to zero. In other words, the defending side would still face a threat that isn't much less credible than it was without missile defense. So the best missile defense can do is to replace one small probability with another. Yet, since nobody knows what exactly these probabilities are in the first place, it would just add one more level of uncertainty to an already uncertain situation without making a fundamental difference.

It's understandable that people often talk about European missile defense as one of the ways in which to deal with the missile threat posed by Iran. Or that someday missile defense could provide insurance for nuclear disarmament--this is the vision that Ronald Reagan had. When framed in this way, missile defense seems like a promising way out of difficult situations. But this promise is false. If a real confrontation ever comes about (and let's hope it never happens), we quickly would find out that missile defense offers no meaningful protection whatsoever.

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Comments

Pavel, I always enjoy your column in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist. While I agree on your premise and general conclusions, I always feel the need to make a farther point. I’m not sure what exactly is the “false promise” of missile defense. I don’t think any American political leader, regardless of party affiliation, or any general in the Pentagon has ever stated the goal of such a “national missile defense system” is to intercept and absolutely prevent a nuclear ballistic missile attack on the United States.

In fact today, “missile defense” is really just a big research & development project that may have certain merits and military value in the next twenty years or so. Given that, there are no guarantees. Ballistic missile defense systems are no more a threat to ICBMs than anti-aircraft missile systems are to maned aircraft. What such systems do in a military sense is force a change in tactics on the battlefield. That’s all.

What is obvious is that nuclear weapons today are no longer military weapons of war but, in fact, have evolved into only national political “tools”. Nations measure their prestige by the number of such weapons in much the same way as the number of Dreadnought battleships 100 years-a-go defined being a “world power”. Ballistic missile defense systems, like the GBI system in Alaska and California and proposed for Europe, are also just such a political tool. No more; no less.

It´s incredible how missile experts could be so naive when talking about nuclear strategy.

It´s OBVIOUS, for me, that North Korea and Iran are a scapegoat reason to create the USA missile defense system.

The targets of this system are Russian and China, obviously, without a bit of doubt.

He simply forget the reason to have such a system. To give the USA the possiblity of doing a decapitating first strike.

Their arguments are allways that this is impossible, that China and Russia will never get in a war against NATO or USA.
How NAIVE that thinking is.

If Russia have any war with any country in the NATO sphere of influence, that could cause a war of NATO against Russia. South Ossetia war just proved that.
If China have a war with Taiwan or Japan, that could cause a war with USA.

How people can be so Naive to discard the possibility of a War with Russia or China, and then, the reason, the main reason for creating a missile defense.
To Get strategic advance and military superiority.

"What is obvious is that nuclear weapons today are no longer military weapons of war but, in fact, have evolved into only national political “tools”. Nations measure their prestige by the number of such weapons in much the same way as the number of Dreadnought battleships 100 years-a-go defined being a “world power”. Ballistic missile defense systems, like the GBI system in Alaska and California and proposed for Europe, are also just such a political tool. No more; no less."

No Frank, i don´t agree with that. Israel is seriously using their nuclear weapons as deterrent and threatening weapons against Syria and Iran.
USA use it´s nuclear weapons as a threat against any country tha would use chemical weapons.
Pakistan use their nuclear weapons to keep India with their weapons down, ever when clearly Pakistan is supporting acts of war against India.

If Pakistan didn´t had nuclear weapons, USA would have invaded Pakistan already for supporting the Taliban in the past as they invaded Afghanistan.

Russian military experts consider tactical nuclear weapons as an answer to NATO convetional military superiority.

So no Nuclear weapons are not political tools and strategic superiority is not day dream, its reality and that is what NATO and USA are looking for. Strategic Superiority.
In a decapitating attack, a missile defense system is a helping hand.

How can somenoen simply dismiss the possiblity of USA having or chosing to confront Russia in a war or China for that matter.

For USA to have a missile defense system makes Russia uncertain of their second strike ability, and that make then, Russia, weaker against NATO.

And that is strategic superiority, how can anyone says that this is not the case, is beyond me.

"If a real confrontation ever comes about ... we quickly would find out that missile defense offers no meaningful protection whatsoever."

This is hardly true. Sure, no BMD system would stand up to a massive attack or an attack by even few missiles equipped with advanced anti-BMD countermeasures.

However, it can technically be made reasonably efficient against simple ballistic targets with no countermeasures or equipped with rudimentary countermeasures, as will be the case for any entry-level missile state for a number of years after it enters the game.

What BMD system could therefore provide in this context, is:

1) A reasonably efficient if not perfect protection against missile-based WMD attacks by politically authoritarian regimes emerging at the entry level of missile technology.

2) A time window for evaluation of the emerging threat and dealing with it. This time window will last until the regime develops enhanced countermeasures, an effort likely to take several years, roughly about the time it takes to develop MIRV technology.

While it is true that a country that was able to develop long-range missiles will eventually be able to develop BMD countermeasures as well, such a development will take time. Thus, availability of BMD buys time window for dealing with the new threat, whatever such dealing could mean in political or military terms.

3) The very existence of BMD would be a factor demotivating a country with entry-level missile technology against using it in a crisis, as BMD would greatly raise that country's leadership uncertainty about usability of its weapons... with worst-case scenario of their fears being, obviously, an intercepted launch that inflicted no damage on the U.S. (and also undermined credibility of the remaining missiles) but invited retaliation and harsh prosecution of all decision-makers involved.

Therefore, existence of BMD would increase motivation of the leadership of a country hostile to the U.S. to keep to its missiles unlaunched for as long as possible (longer than they would do in the absence of BMD) and to use missiles as a threat and bargaining leverage, and decrease their inclination to risk missile launch that may turn out to be a "dud", thanks for BMD, but with the train of consequences.

Corollary: BMD would serve as a stabilizing factor in a crisis involving entry-level countries.

4) The very existence of BMD would also be a factor demotivating countries that can potentially acquire missile technology against its actual acquisition both in terms of technology development programs and weapon systems production.

While it is undeniably true that there are a number of negative factors to BMD, such as creating a sense of false over-assurance and over-reliance on the system's performance on the part of U.S. leadership and public, these negative factors ought to be weighed against the benefits outlined above.

I would agree that missile defense can be somewhat effective in intercepting missiles. But that's exactly the point - as long as it's not 100 percent effective, it's irrelevant. As for the rest, there is absolutely no evidence that missile defense has ever deterred anyone from developing or improving missile capabilities. Quite the contrary.

Pavel, even Reagan's era layered SDI program assumed just around 90% of effectiveness, overall. According to Office of Technology Assessment, these could allow survive no more then 1500 incoming soviet warheads. It (90%) was way enough to prevent soviet leaders attack States, and that's whole idea. Missile defense system doesn't have to assure 100% ratio of success, to make sense.

SDI never made sense and never promised anywhere near 90% effectiveness. Not to mention that it was never built, so it could not possibly have played any role in "preventing Soviet leaders from attacking the United States." It's useful to get the facts right.

Anyway, I have to admit that this article made me rethink the issue a bit. Although missile defense protection, even partial protection, sounds like a decent enough thing, it's hard to ignore that such systems will almost surely lead to further counter-research into new and more effective warheads.

>>> "But that's exactly the point - as long as it's not 100 percent effective, it's irrelevant."

It's an odd argument. No military nor any technical system can ever be 100 percent effective and reliable. That's hardly an argument against the use of technology, including its defense applications.

The meaningful question is a minimum level of strategic ABM system efficiency that would meaningfully further certain political and security goals. For the goals outlined above, it appears a reasonable estimate that system efficiency in the 70-90% range (for the kinds of the targets outlined) would make a lot of difference.

If MDA will be able to develop a system with even higher level of interception efficiency, kudos to it, but the goal is certainly not an ephemeral 100 percent efficiency.

>>> "There is absolutely no evidence that missile defense has ever deterred anyone from developing or improving missile capabilities"

Likewise, it's an odd argument. There never was a strategic defense system deployed or nearing a deployment, so a priori there could not possibly be any historical evidence of the kind you are referring to, either pro or contra.

As far as historical evidence goes nevertheless, Soviet perceptions and expectations of SDI capabilities (of whatever variance with technical reality they were) certainly did contribute quite a bit to the Soviet realization of futility of military competition and confrontation with the West, and to an eventual changes in overall Soviet political thinking.

Of course no system is 100% perfect. But they don't have a mission that requires them to be 100% perfect. Unlike missile defense that is asked to "deal with a missile threat" from countries like North Korea or Iran. I just don't see how a system with 70-90% (estimated) effectiveness would be able to make any difference, let alone "a lot of difference".

As for SDI, the historical evidence tells exactly the opposite - whatever its effect was, it did not make anyone realize "futility of military competition".

Pavel, let me paint a picture whereby the American GBI system makes a certain sense. Forgive me, but I’ll vilify the North Koreans. Let’s say a series of political, economic, and social situations force the DPRK into a desperate military decision. Pyongyang decides a nuclear strike on the United States is the first step to a political solution that will provide security and prosperity to the regime. North Korea has a long range inventory of six mobile ICBMs pattern on Russian designs and safely deployed in vast underground tunnels where they can be launched without ready detection by satellites or air resources. Such a fateful decision is make, a single warhead ICBM is launched against the United States. With a thirty minute warning, Washington is in a panic. Pyongyang announces if the United States retaliates, five more American cities will be destroyed. Indeed a US city is stuck and 300,000 Americans are taken in the first moments of impact. What is the US response? If the President orders the Pentagon to counter strike, five more US cities will be lost. What do we do?

GBI changes the dynamics. North Korea can’t be 100% certain a launch against the US will be successful. If their desperate plan fails, the American response to a GBI intercept will be a devastating nuclear strike that will destroy North Korea as a functional society. Launching the remaining five DPRK ICBMs is no deterrence as they may be intercepted as well. The uncertainty the GBI systems brings to the political process prevents such a military decision by Pyongyang. Perhaps this is the real value of such a system.

Understand, a limited ICBM launch against the United States is only one scenario in the vast security puzzle America faces to keep our nation from attack. GBI is only one tool in the process. Just one.

This scenario stops making sense right int he beginning - "Pyongyang decides a nuclear strike on the United States is the first step to a political solution that will provide security and prosperity to the regime." How exactly would that be a first step in anything? The rest is just as implausible.

Pavel, I’m sure you would agree that having nuclear weapons does not deter war. Argentina was not influenced by the British having a nuclear arsenal when she went to war over the Falkland Islands in 1982. Georgia certainly didn’t seem too concerned by how many ICBMs Russia had in her arsenal when fighting over South Ossetia erupted. I can’t think of any situation today that the use of nuclear weapons is not “implausible”. One might argue the Minuteman III ICBMs, first installed in 1970, have kept the peace for the last 39 years. One might argue the Minuteman III ICBMs have been the most colossal waste of tax-payer’s monies ever. After all, it’s a weapon system that cost billions of dollars to development, procure, and support and yet has never been used. As previously stated, I think both Minuteman III and the GBI system are political weapons and not military ones.

...“Instead, we should ask: Would missile defense change Washington's strategic calculation in a potential conflict with North Korea or Iran? The answer to this question is a firm no.”... (Pavel Podvig)

My question is would missile defense change North Korea's strategic calculation in a potential conflict with the United States? The answer to this question is a firm maybe.

It is just silly to argue that missile defense has no value. "I just don't see how a system with 70-90% (estimated) effectiveness would be able to make any difference."

If you only have a 10-30% chance of success this very clearly changes your decision making process. Today's 70-90% effectiveness is a stepping stone to tomorrows 95% effectiveness. How much has been learned already by testing programs versus not testing during ABM ban.

Missile defense has proven to be successful. Just 5 years ago your could find a huge contingent of scientists saying hitting a bullet with a bullet was impossbile. Not today. Now it is an argument about countermeasures. Countermeasures will be defeated and the cycle continues.

Darren: How exactly does the difference between 30% and, say, 5% chance of success change the decision-making process? Especially if this is the chance of delivering a nuclear warhead to a major city.

The "success" of missile defense in hitting targets is nothing new - the Soviet Union demonstrated a successful missile intercept back in 1961. It's just it doesn't make much difference when it comes to "countering" the threat of nuclear attack.

I think it's important to flesh out a realistic example of how a nuclear war might occur. For example, say that Taiwan elects a new pro independence group that goes ahead and declares Taiwanese independence. At this point China reacts militarily and readies it's medium range missiles and ships for an attack. US sends it's navy into the canal to defend Taiwan. As things get more heated (perhaps there are few live fire incidents on the sea) Chinese leaderships starts worrying that US might try to destroy their unfueled missiles with a first strike. At this point they order the fueling of the missiles to enhance the chance that China will manage to retaliate in case of a strike and deter US.
US president upon seeing the satellite images of the missiles being fueled immediately imagines San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles Area as piles of radioactive ash. Of course, he and his advisers know that China could be doing this just to enhance it's deterrent credibility but at the prospect of such destruction can they take the chance? At this point it is anybodies guess whether US will launch.
With the ABM shield, say 40 GBI interceptors, US can launch 2 missiles at each of the 20 ICBMs posessed by China today. If each missile has a chance of success of 60% then two missiles will have a chance of about 84%. Is that perfect? No. Will it influence the decision of US president on whether to launch the missiles or to wait and see what happens? Yes definitely. The chance of a strike is decreased even though we can't precisely express it with numbers since one of the factors are the human minds of Joint Chiefs and President.

Then there is another dimension of ABM shield which no one seems to be mentioning: the fact that other than serving as deterrent ABM can also actually shoot down the missiles. If worse comes to worst and China does launch then there is a good chance that all of the missiles will be shot down. Even if only, say, San Francisco is saved that is certainly worth several hundred billion dollars for the development of the system.

Or to return to North Korea: suppose that, for whatever reasons, North Korea launches a missile at the US and a city gets razed. What happens then? Only one thing: North Korea gets wiped off the map. But with an ABM system there is a chance, and a good one, that missile will be shot down. Not only was a city saved but now US leadership will not be under an absolute pressure to wipe the attacker off the map. It can call up North Korea and offer it to surrender immediately and if they accept avoid the loss of millions and a destruction of society.

Finally in the nightmare scenario of a war between Russia and US a developed ABM system with number of interceptors say twice that of the Russian ICBM arsenal could shoot down a large percentage of warheads. While this would leave US a heavily damaged country it would save it from being utterly destroyed beyond all recognition. Japan was bombed twice, lest we forget, and that was just an icing on a very large cake of conventional bombing. Yet Japan continued, rebuilt and is today second largest high-tech economy. Just because war has "nuclear" in it doesn't mean it's an on/off scenario. It too can be more or less devastating and ABM system can make it far less so.
People say that nukes kept Russia and US from going to war. People seem to forget that Russia and US never went to war so it's a little to soon to claim that ICBM possesses divine power to stop war. ICBMs are, in actuality, unstable weapons that cannot be recalled and coupled with MIRV technology put the premium on first strike since you can theoretically eliminate entire missile force of an enemy with only 10% of your force (assuming 10 warhead ICBM). Long range interceptors can take out an ICBM before it can disengage its warheads thus eliminating that threat. The sooner ICBMs are obsolete the better for humanity.

Regarding decoys: decoy effectiveness depends on materials technology while discrimination technology of the interceptor depends on electronics and computer processing power. Which of those technologies are advancing at fastest rate?

DrStrangelove: I still don't see why would a defense influence U.S. decision to launch or not (or to get into a conflict in the first place). We have a good data point, by the way - during the Cuban crisis, the military told JFK that an air strike would most likely take out Soviet missiles, but they could not guarantee that all the missiles will be destroyed. As we know, there was no air strike.

Pavel Podvig: just because Kennedy decided against first strike doesn't mean it was an easy or obvious decision. We don't know how close Kennedy came to ordering the strike. Presence of an ABM shield would further push the decision into "don't launch first" territory.
China, for example, was not deterred by US nuclear weapons when it intervened in Korean war and directly attacked US ground forces. Chinese leadership obviously felt China would be sufficiently threatened by US forces in North Korea that they decided to attack.

ABM would influence the decision whether to launch because without the ABM shield president and his advisers know that the second Chinese missiles leave the silos it's all over for Los Angeles and San Francisco. There is absolutely nothing they can do to save them then. With an ABM shield even after launch there is 84% chance (in my example) that they can shoot them all down. Since even Chinese launching first doesn't mean that all is lost the president won't be under such pressure to try a preemptive strike. Again: just because we are dealing with nukes doesn't mean people minds operate in 0% and 100% modes. Decisions are still weighted with pros and cons until president finally decides on a course of action.

And finally let me reiterate again that that ABMs ability to actually shoot down a missile if it fails in its role as a deterrent should not be ignored when discussing its usefulness as a system.

without the ABM shield president and his advisers know that the second Chinese missiles leave the silos it's all over for Los Angeles and San Francisco

In reality it means that the president and his advisers know that in a crisis situation there is a certain chance that China would launch its missiles, which could then destroy (again, with some probability, which is higher in the case of China than in the case of North Korea, and could be lowered by first strike, nuclear or conventional, etc.) Los Angeles and San Francisco. What I am saying is that the best missile defense could do is to reduce that chance. But that would not change the fundamental choice - if the president was not ready to accept the loss of a city in the first place, missile defense will not change the calculation.

Of course, one could imagine situations in which the stakes are high enough for the president to decide that he is willing to accept this possibility, but missile defense has no role in that particular decision. Damage limitation has its place in most military force protection scenarios, but it is useless in countering the threat of nuclear blackmail the current missile defense is supposed to counter. When it would come to a decision to confront that threat, the president will quickly find out that a scenario in which one city is destroyed with 12% probability is not different at all from the one in which two cities are destroyed with 80% probability. Kennedy made exactly this calculation and we know that he went to great lengths to avert a nuclear strike.

Pavel, given your respected opinion on missile defense systems, can you comment on one thing that still has me perplexed. If these systems have no real military-political value, and taking the American GBI system in particular, why is Russia so concerned? Moscow’s opposition to the American GBI proposed for Europe resembled almost geo-political paranoia over ten interceptors. Does the Kremlin really fear such a system? Is it the establishment of American military bases in the former Soviet “sphere of influence”? I guess that doesn’t make practical sense with the United States today sharing bases in Romania and Bulgaria but at least Poland has a common territorial border with Russia. Does Russia fear for the security of Kaliningrad? Moscow moves from statements one day that the SRF weapons, such as the Topol-M, are “invincible” against all current or future planned anti-missile systems to the next day pleading the installation of the GBI system in North American, and proposed for Europe, endangers the very nuclear security of all Russia. The US political decision not to deploy the GBI system in Europe and install the future land-based SM-3 system in it’s place, will only add more American bases in even more countries and create even greater American influence into Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. This certainly can’t be in Russia’s interest.

Personally I think missile defence changes the aggressors calculus more than the defender. We keep talking about how would this change the President's decision making in this or that scenario but if the missiles are already in the air then I think its clear having an 80% chance of saving your cities is better than having a 0% chance. Even with current state of the art I suspect you have a better than 80% chance against all but a pier strike.

In the case where an aggressor has but a few missiles and knows there is a very limited chance any of them actually get through and they've just invited massive retaliation then the chance of that aggressor firing their missiles in the first place is less - and even if they do there is a good chance of a shoot down.

Missile Defence is an option I'd like to have as a state.

And sure - you can argue that missile defence makes war more likely if you get an aggressive president. Had Kennedy known he could order the air strike, possibly get all the missiles but even if he didn't have a very high percentage chance of shooting down any retaliatory strike then the decision might have been different.

In that sense it might be destabilizing but that doesn't make it a reason not to pursue in my mind.

Had Kennedy known he could order the air strike, possibly get all the missiles but even if he didn't have a very high percentage chance of shooting down any retaliatory strike then the decision might have been different.

Why would the decision have been different? Say, an air strike could destroy all but one or two missiles, then the defense can intercept about half. Still, there is a reasonable chance that one would get through. And then, the effectiveness of neither the air strike nor missile defense is known. What if it's "three-four missiles" and "30 percent"? There is no way around the fact that the probability of a successful attack is not zero.

Or, the anti-missile system would have intercepted two. Or, none. However with an American air strike on Cuba (nuclear?), the risk would have moved to Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. He could have completed the game, with the Cuban gambit, but been faced with the destruction of the Soviet Union in return. Political leaders only have one need; to remain in power. The Soviet Union in 1961 had 500 strategic warheads; the US 5000. The Pentagon knew it; the Kremlin knew it. The Kremlin knew the Pentagon knew it. After all, why the “Cuban Gambit” in the first place? The key here seems to be indecision. If an ABM system provides such “indecision”, perhaps that is its greatest claim to reason.

Poor Khrushchev. He couldn’t get tractors to work in Ukraine. No bread or wheat to export. Perhaps that is the lesson.

Frank: I'm not sure I understood your point. Are you saying that if Kennedy had missile defense it would have deterred Khrushchev from deploying missiles on Cuba? I just don't see why this would be the case.

Pavel, Khrushchev's decision to place IRBMs in Cuba was made in weakness. It was a failed political attempt to install short range missiles in Cuba that would have had the same strategic military effect as Russian-based ICBMs and closed somewhat the “missile gap” between the Soviet Union and the US. After the “Bay of Pigs”, he expected little interference from Washington. He was mistaken.

I was attempting to follow your point on ballistic missile defense systems and national defense policy. You inferred President Kennedy’s decision not to order the air strike on Cuba was based on the realization not all of the IRBMs could be accounted for in such an air strike and at least some would probably reach their targets. Because not all of the missiles could be destroyed on the ground, an air strike was not “politically acceptable”. You drew the conclusion this historical situation was like ballistic missile defense. If you couldn’t guarantee all the missiles would be intercepted, the system was worthless. I disagree. ABM defenses would not have deterred Khrushchev from putting missiles in Cuba in the first place. ABM defenses would not have “won the war” against the Soviet Union in 1961. In fact, I sincerely doubt ABM defenses would have played any role at all in nuclear policy decisions on either side. The only thing ABM defenses might have done is save an American city or two. That’s the “worth” of ABM systems, no more; no less.

Pavel, however you’re talking about a historical reality and not a “political hypothesis”. Had, say, a Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine launched torpedos against a US Navy Gearing-class destroyer, all bets against an air strike go away. The loss of USAF Captain Anderson and his U-2 could be held in anger, but an attack on a US naval vessel enforcing the embargo would have tipped the scales. In such an environment, President Kennedy would have had no options other than the destruction of those IRBMs; the US strike may well have been nuclear; limited, but nuclear in any event. Khrushchev's choice would have been interesting. Would he have authorized a retaliatory nuclear strike on the United States? Would he have been willing to trade Moscow for Havana? Washington for Leningrad? Would he have authorized a ground attack on West Berlin? What would have been the Soviet response? However with the “dogs of war” released, at that point you would think any Soviet move would have been met by an American nuclear response.

The question is, what is it that missile defense might be useful for. I agree, in some circumstances it can intercept a missile or a warhead. But that does not mean that would be useful in "countering the missile threat" or a mission like that.

Pavel, I just don’t think you can group all missile defense systems under one banner and say they have no value; militarily or politically. I completely agree that the GBI system deployed today in Alaska & California, and formerly proposed for Europe, isn’t a “National Defense System” that will defend the United States from any and all ICBM attacks. Not even close. No American president will ever assume so, ever. However, it is a system in its technical infancy. Throw a few annual budget dollars into this program and we’ll see where we are in 10 years. Maybe it has value; maybe not but I think it’s worth the investment to see.

Pavel, with your argument you can argue that any defense is not needed since it is imperfect. If a political leader in any part of the world at any time in history could prevent his people from being attacked and he would do it or else be overthrown/assasinated/voted out. Why did people build walls around their cities even if these could be scaled? Why did the USSR build hundreds of thousands of SAMs if American jets could foil most of them? HUMVEE's in Iraq are uparmored even though most IEDs can still penetrate them. In reality a missile defense system like weak armor or walls is a weak defense- it is very leaky- but a poor defense is better than none at all logically and militarily. It is also politically untennable to DO NOTHING and from what we've observed Russia, China and others have prevented proper sanctions against Iran- leaving only a poor missile defense option at best. Russia prevents proper UN actions against Iran and discourages a defensive system. Why do you want the West to be so vunerable? An internally collapsing Iranian regime- if it possessed nuclear weapons capable of reaching Europe would be a nightmare scenario. There would be no functional way to deter it. The world would long remember that lesson and purely defensive weapon systems would enjoy a renaissance never before seen regardless of how effective they are. If reasonable doubt cannot be created in the mind of an agressor that his attack will not be effective there may be no way to stop him- this is why Hitler invaded Russia and suicide bombers target schools, if before hand they knew they would be ineffective they would likely stop or find another avenue of attack. You're right that missile defenses are poor but that will never stop vulnerable societies from trying to defend themselves from potentially massive destruction. Israel, Japan, South Korea and India all perform ABM research besides the U.S. and nations will continue this as long as there are ballistic missiles.

Jo: I'm not saying that "any defense is not needed" - it all depends on the mission. Defense certainly may make sense in the context in which some level of casualties is expected and can be tolerated. This is definitely not the case in situations like the alleged missile threat from Iran or North Korea. I would not advocate "doing nothing" - rather I would say that the only truly reliable way of dealing with missile threat is to make sure that there is no missile threat. From that point of view, missile defense does worse than nothing - it creates an illusion of a response, while not offering anything.